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Historical person
1504–1536
George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, was the only surviving son of Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn and the brother of Mary and Anne Boleyn. He became a courtier, diplomat and supporter of religious reform during Anne’s queenship. In 1536 he was accused of committing incest with his sister, a charge unsupported by credible evidence but useful in transforming allegations of adultery into treason. He was convicted and executed two days before Anne.
George appears in Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl and Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies, which offer sharply different interpretations of the Boleyn circle. Some fiction has portrayed him through unsupported claims about sexuality or cruelty, while other novels emphasise literary talent, evangelical interests and loyalty to Anne. The incest charge remains one of the clearest examples of political accusation overwhelming evidence.
Series
The Wolf Hall Trilogy follows Thomas Cromwell from his early service to Cardinal Wolsey through his rise as Henry VIII’s most effective minister and his fall in 1540. Told largely through Cromwell’s perspective, the series reinterprets the Tudor court as a working political system shaped by patronage, law,…
All books in this series
All books in this series
Standalone books
